


I will fear no evil

by Blue_Sparkle, MarieJacquelyn, Thorinsmut



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Bible Quotes, Death, Execution, M for violence, M/M, Murder, No Smut, Priest AU, Tragedy, Trust, Western AU, abuse of religion, evil!Dwalin, lol what is canon, no happy ending, nonsexual intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 21:50:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1757847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Sparkle/pseuds/Blue_Sparkle, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarieJacquelyn/pseuds/MarieJacquelyn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thorinsmut/pseuds/Thorinsmut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone fears the Peacemaker and the death he brings wherever he goes. </p><p>Nori knows about it better than most and dedicated his life to stopping the man who ripped apart his life.</p><p>Everything changed when he met a preacher on a train, and started to learn to move on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I will fear no evil

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ THE TAGS AND WARNINGS! THIS IS NOT A NICE FIC!
> 
> MJ had a Nwalin dream, and shared it with Sparkle and I on Skype. It was such a compelling idea I couldn't let it go. We did a lot of weeping and headcanoning together, and I (Thorinsmut) wrote this monstrosity. Sparkle provided art.
> 
> EDIT: MJ also made an 8tracks playlist for this fic: http://8tracks.com/mariejacquelyn/i-will-fear-no-evil
> 
>  
> 
> Bible passages used in this fic, in no particular order: Psalms 23, Mathew 5:9, 1 Samuel 16:7, Acts 4:32, Isaiah 5:8-9, Ezekiel 18:32

Nori’s happy childhood ended with the _rat-tat-tat_ of a machine gun.

It ended looking up into his mother’s terrified eyes as she sent him down to hide in the waters of the dead lake. It ended hearing the guns, and the screams. Seeing the red blossoming across his mother’s pretty flowered dress as the bullets tore through her body before she fell, knocking him down the ladder into the dead lake.

Nori’s childhood ended hiding under his mother’s floating body as the mercenaries ransacked their once-peaceful little town.

He was no stranger to death and the dead, living in the funeral town over the dead lake where bodies were brought to seek their final rest under the salt – but never like that.

Never people he knew. Never so many.

Never his own mother, who was dead before she hit the water.

Nori held to one of the piers that held the town up. He held himself down in the stinging salt of the water, hiding under the boardwalk.

Looking up through the cracks was the first time he saw _him_. The murderer who called himself the Peacemaker, the famed and reviled leader of the mercenaries who’d killed so many. The killers who struck from _nowhere_ and did not care how many others they killed as they sought their targets.

Nori would never forget the tromp of his heavy black boots on the wood, the _ching_ of his spurs, the sharp scent of his cigar. He could not see much besides the fall the Peacemaker’s red cloak, darkened with mud on the bottom hem - the shadowed curve of his hat’s brim - and a gleam of gold at his throat that could only be the famous dove medallion.

The Peacemaker breathed out a massive slow plume of smoke as he surveyed the death and wreckage before he turned and walked away. He never said a word.

And Nori swore he would _never_ forget.

 

The second part of Nori’s life began on the train platform.

Those who'd survived rigged up the signal flag, and the train stopped. They were a ragged bunch, the survivors. Their clothes were corroded and their skin covered with the salt-sores from collecting the bodies, and sinking their friends and families under the dead lake.

The solar stills had been damaged, and there was hardly enough fresh water for those few who were left, and they had all suffered for it. Their skin cracked from the salt and dehydration.

There were some who stayed on the dead lake, and some who planned to return, but not Nori.

He boarded the train, and he did not look back.

He grew up fast, and he had a good eye and a steady hand. He was a marksman, a gunslinger, and he worked on the side of the law.

Nori brought in more than his fair share of wanted criminals – dead or alive, and not always alive – but he _hunted_ the Peacemaker.

He saw... so many things. The carnage the Peacemaker and his mercenaries left behind.

Time after time, Nori was too late to catch him.

Nori traveled a lot of places in those years, and brought in a lot of bandits. He did some things he was not proud of, but he never hurt a woman or a child, and he never killed a man unless in defense of his own or another's life.

 

Nori's second life ended when the Peacemaker and his mercenaries disappeared. It was assumed that the Peacemaker had died – taken a wound in a gunfight and crawled away somewhere to rot, or his men had turned on him and each other.

Nori searched north and south, east and west, but the Peacemaker was _gone_.

Without purpose, Nori's second life ended.

 

His third life began on a train, when a preacher sat across from him. Unlike his second life, Nori did not realize right away that anything had changed. The preacher was a big man, built heavy in the shoulders like a brawler. He had a neatly-trimmed graying beard, and his head was bald. There was a surprising delicacy in the movements of his wide calloused hands when he placed his worn black stetson on his knee.

Nori had never taken a liking to men of God – was not entirely sure he was convinced such a thing as _God_ existed, after the things he'd seen.

The preacher had only smiled when Nori put forth that view.

“The innocent suffer that the guilty may be judged.” He said mildly. His deep voice was whiskey and hickory smoke, and when he leaned forward Nori was captured in his bright blue eyes, “But I can _understand_ the desire to hasten a man to his judgment.”

Dwalin, he introduced himself. Nori was no slouch, but it was clear Dwalin could have crushed his own comparatively slender hand in his workman's grip. He didn't, though. His handshake was warm and firm and nothing more.

Dwalin admired Nori's brace of pistols, custom Colts made to his own specifications, and handed over his own Colt .45 in exchange to see them. Where Nori's were simple and utilitarian, Dwalin's was a work of art. It weighed heavy in Nori's hands, sized for the preacher's bigger grip. It had been engraved, the pearl stock carved with the motif of a dove and gold inlay. Despite it being so ornate, it was excellently maintained and in perfect condition. The mechanisms all worked effortlessly.

“Beautiful.” Dwalin said, handing Nori's gun back and accepting his own.

“They serve their purpose.” Nori answered, settling the familiar weight of his gun back on his hip, hand resting affectionately on the simple walnut stock for a moment.

“As does mine.” Dwalin answered. “...I have never killed a man with this gun.”

“Then you are a better man than I am.” Nori answered, but again the preacher just smiled.

“We all serve God in out own way, whether we know it or not.” Dwalin said.

Nori's third life began on a train, debating theology day after day with a most unusual preacher over the clack of the rails and the rumble of the engine. Dwalin was an educated man. Nori could _read_ , but Dwalin had written books. He could quote long passages of the bible on a whim, and speak with authority on any number of subjects, but he never made Nori feel _less_ for not being able to.

Dwalin even helped Nori refine his own arguments when they debated, helping him say what he _meant_ , before he answered them.

He gave Nori a copy of his latest book, that he'd been traveling to get printed.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Nori read off from the cover, hardly daring to turn the crisp new pages.

“Mathew five and nine.” Dwalin rumbled, his eyes soft, “My favorite. That's what I do. I try to bring peace, and make the world a better place.”

Nori met those bright blue eyes, and he could not speak. He, who'd spent so much of his life bent on revenge.

Without judging him, Dwalin made him _want_ to be a better man.

When Dwalin eventually asked where Nori was heading, Nori hesitated. He'd just been following the rails. He _had_ no place to go. He had no home to return to.

Dwalin seemed to understand that, though. His big hand rested warm on Nori's shoulder.

“Come with me, brother.” He invited, and there was nothing Nori wanted more.

And so his third life began on a train; a life that sought peace, with Dwalin.

 

Nori had never thought he would return to the salt flats. He had thought the memories would haunt him, but that was not the case. The sharp glare of the sun and the dry salt dust brought memories of his childhood back, but with the soft fondness of nostalgia. The air was as dry as an oven, the water in the cistern tasted of brine when the wind had been blowing in from the west, and the sun on the salt could blind you. Nori felt right at home.

The salt mining town where Dwalin lived was different from the town on the dead lake. The well never ran dry, but the water was saltier than the sea.

He brought Nori into his small but comfortable home, and fed him a delicious home-cooked meal, and offered him the use of the second bed for as long as he wanted it.

“Everything is shared, brother.” Dwalin told him, gesturing him to everything in his home. “'They who believed were of one heart and of one soul: they had all things common.' Only this chest here is mine, and private.” He rested a big hand on the heavy chest at the foot of his bed, and that seemed more than fair to Nori.

Dwalin's generosity had no bounds.

Nori fell easily into the rhythm of the life, taking his turn tending to the solar stills and taking no more than his share of the fresh water. With Nori's reputation – he carried letters from the sheriffs he'd rode in posse with, and a few telegrams confirmed him – he was easily hired on as a deputy. It was easy work most days, just making sure there were no unruly drunks, that no one was stealing water – with the occasional beating delivered to reeducate a man who thought he could raise a hand to his wife or children.

Nori might be a small man, but he was not to be underestimated in a fight. It did not take long for the local troublemakers to learn that, dead hand though he was with his pistols, the time to start apologizing was when Nori set aside his gun belt and deputy badge and began rolling his sleeves up.

The town learned fast enough not to light up a smoke beside him. He never had learned to abide the smell.

“It reminds me of watching my mother die.” he explained simply, leaving it at that. Those he'd call friends would put their cigarettes out if they saw him coming.

He was well enough liked, for all that.

Dwalin cared for the spiritual life of the town, those who cared for such things, and Nori helped take care of the law.

He was not the only one who sat out on the porch of Dwalin's small house in the evening when the sun sank on the horizon, lighting sky and ground in a lake of fire while Dwalin spoke of God and peace and a higher calling.

Nori was not the only one who debated with Dwalin in the evening, but he was the only one who stayed. He was the only one who lived with Dwalin.

Nori _could_ have claimed a small cabin beside the lockup, his right as a deputy, but he did not want it. He was far happier sharing with Dwalin.

He loved Dwalin.

It was a pure love, a _holy_ love. A love of the mind rather than the lust of the body.

Nori could make coffee and a decent fryup, but he loved the delicious things Dwalin could do with even the simplest food.

He loved Dwalin's strength, put on display when there was any particularly heavy task that needed doing. The man of God was not afraid to work on the earth. He threw his shoulder in along with everyone else.

He loved the gentleness of Dwalin's hands when he occasionally helped plait Nori's hair in the two long braids that hung down his back, and when he shook his head over and tended the occasional black eye or split lip Nori brought home from work.

Dwalin always shook his head, but Nori could see the approval in his smile when Nori explained why he'd been fighting, and how he'd won.

The trust when they shaved each other was religious in its own right. It might be sacrilege, but Nori was not such a good man he'd deny it. Nori leaned back in the chair, and he never could look away from the preacher as his face was lathered, his chin nudged upward with the tip of a thick finger, and the long blade of the razor gently cleared away the foam and his meager stubble. Dwalin would be stripped down to his shirtsleeves, the fabric stretched across the breadth of his chest, his sleeves rolled up to bare brawny forearms that bore heavy-lined black tattoos. Nori sometimes wondered if he'd been to sea, to get those, but he did not ask. Dwalin's face was always so peaceful, as he shaved Nori. His movements were gentle and precise as he held Nori's life in his hands, deadly blade against his throat.

[ ](http://asparklethatisblue.tumblr.com/post/88128413518/sneak-peak-on-a-story-thorinsmut-is-writing-right)

Giving that trust to Dwalin was a holy experience in its own right, but it paled beside being given the same in return. Nori had been afraid his hands would shake and he would cut Dwalin the first time the preacher asked his help in shaving his head.

He was lucky he'd always had a steady hand under pressure. Nori would never grow used to the vulnerability Dwalin offered, running a blade over the nape of his neck, across the sides of his scalp, so close to the tender skin behind his ear. Nor would he ever grow used to the warm way Dwalin smiled at him afterward, running a hand over his newly smoothed head.

And Nori loved him, fully and completely.

As much as he loved all those things, and as much as he loved debating with Dwalin – loved the way the preacher would challenge him, pushing him to think harder, _better –_ the thing Nori loved the very best was when Dwalin read to him.

Nori could read alright, but never with the fluid grace Dwalin could. Dwalin's speaking voice was deep as smoke, but his reading voice was something beyond. It was as rich as honey, as dark as secrets, deep like it would crack the foundations of the world and show Nori the beginnings of _time_ itself.

Nori could listen to it forever – and he was not as good man as Dwalin was, maybe his love was not so pure, to want to _touch_ that voice, to hold on and never let go.

Dwalin liked to read to him from psalms, after the rest of those he debated with in the evenings left and it was just the two of them. “The poetry of the Lord” he called it.

Nori could understand why. It flowed like a stream of sweet water, how Dwalin read it. Nori might not be fully convinced of God and all things religious, but he loved the psalms in Dwalin's voice.

He would have kept Dwalin up all night to read to him, just to watch his face in the candlelight and listen to him, but Dwalin never let it go on too long. Just a little while, and then he would mention that dawn came early, and they would put out the candle and go to bed.

He would never forget the first time Dwalin read him the 23rd psalm. Some of it he recognized he'd heard quoted, but he had never heard the whole thing. Nori was convinced that Dwalin's voice could turn _anything_ into a holy text, but _that_...

It was everything. Nori had been so lost and alone. The psalm was written to God, but it was _everything_ Dwalin had given him – asking for nothing in return, like the true man of God he was. It was certainly sacrilege to put Dwalin's name in that place in his mind, but Nori was not good enough a man to care.

Nori hardly realized he was weeping until the preacher reached across the table to softly wipe away a tear from his cheek.

“Brother...” he asked, concern in his tone, and Nori shook his head.

“Read it to me again?” Nori managed, and Dwalin smiled at him with his eyes. He did not even look back down at the bible in his hand as he recited the verses back to Nori.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For _thou_ art with me...” Nori's lips moved in time with Dwalin's words. He did not look away from Dwalin's eyes, and Dwalin's eyes never left his.

 

Nori was happy in the salt flats, a deputy in a little salt mining town and companion to a most unusual preacher. He would never have pictured his life leading him there, but he was happy.

It was a quiet life, mostly. Trouble was rare, and there was the occasional celebration. On his second year there, Nori felt comfortable enough to enter the sharpshooting competition on the fourth of July.

So did Dwalin.

Nori won his first rounds left-handed with a big smile for the crowd, but there were enough good shots he had to bring his good right hand and all his skill and concentration to bear by the end.

After the celebration, Nori and Dwalin carried home the pots for both first and second prize.

“You threw it.” Nori accused, quietly. Dwalin chuckled softly through his nose, bright blue eyes smiling down at him as he rested his big hand briefly on Nori's back, shaking his head.

“You shot better than I did.” Dwalin answered, returning his hand to rest on the dove-engraved handle of his Colt. Nori could see the approval in his eyes.

It warmed him through, hotter than the finest whiskey.

 

With his winnings and his saved wages, Nori took the train out to the city. He'd almost forgotten what it was like to breathe air that wasn't thick with salt dust, to be somewhere pure water was taken for granted. Everything tasted almost unbearably sweet, without the constant salt he'd grown so used to.

It was the first time he'd been separated from Dwalin since the day they met, and he _missed_ him. He read his copy of Dwalin's book, tracing with his fingertips the raised type on the cover – Dwalin's favorite verse – 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God'. He read it, and some of the Gideon's bible in the bedstand of his inn room, but it was not the _same_ as listening to Dwalin read. It was just empty  _words_ , without Dwalin's voice behind it.

He had two weeks in the city, before there was a train back out to the salt flats. Long enough to get some new clothes tailored – something sharp, that hadn't been bleached salt-white in the sun of the desert.

Nori was happy in his life in the mining town, but that didn't mean he didn't want more things than he could easily get there.

He came home dressed in a fine shirt and a new vest in the latest cut, soft dove gray with lilac embroidery to match the ribbons he'd bought to bind the ends of his braids.

Dwalin was there when Nori got home. He was in his shirtsleeves, the soft fabric of his worn shirt clinging to the broad curve of his shoulders, pulling just slightly open at the neck. He looked up from his cooking and smiled when Nori came through the door.

“How was the city?” he asked.

“Lonely.” Nori answered, “But how do I look?” he spun to show off his new things, smiling at Dwalin.

The preacher laughed slightly, “The Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” Nori knew him well enough now to know when he was quoting the bible, just from his tone.

Vanity. That was one of the sins, wasn't it? And here Nori had spent his money to deck himself out in the best he could buy...

Dwalin wiped his hands on a towel and stepped up to Nori. He straightened Nori's new silver bolo tie, ran his hand down the front of his new vest, nodding at the quality of the fabric. He ended with his big strong hands resting on Nori's shoulders.

“You look _good_.” he said gently. “It suits you.”

He smiled when Nori gave him the fresh tin of boot-black he'd bought for him. Nori had noticed that Dwalin was running low, that he was using what was left in his tin sparingly. His brand was not easy to come by out on the salt flats.

It had taken a bit of looking even in the city to find some, but the desert dry was hard on leather and Dwalin's big black boots deserved the best care he could give them.

A man as good as Dwalin deserved the best of _everything._

That night, listening to Dwalin's deep voice rolling over the words of psalms, Nori thought that he might be happy to wear the same old worn clothes for the rest of his life as long as he _never_ had to miss that again.

 

Nori was _happy_ living in the salt mine town. The sun reflecting off the salt pack baked him an even brown, and could blind a man if he looked at it wrong. He delivered drunks to their beds and warnings to criminals and the occasional beating when warranted. The air was as hot and dry as an oven, and the salt dust clung to everything. Sweet water from the solar stills was rationed, and tasted of brine when the west wind had gotten into the cisterns.

He had friends who always remembered to stamp out their cigarettes when they saw him coming, so he wouldn't have to smell them.

And Nori debated God and philosophy with Dwalin of an evening when the salt reflected the fire of the sunset to light everything in red and gold.

Nori's third life was as happy as his first, his childhood in the funeral town over the dead lake, had been.

 

Nori's third life, like his first, ended when he saw the Peacemaker.

There had been a warning that the mercenaries were coming, just a few minutes, and the entire town was in a panic. Running, hiding, _anything_ to get away.

Nori could taste the bile of terror in his throat, the horrified knowledge of what was to come. So many times he'd seen what the killers left behind, in the years he spent hunting the Peacemaker.

The smartest were running to hide in the mines, others packing into the cellars of the bigger buildings.

Nori ran to Dwalin, who was standing calmly in front of the house.

“You have to run.” Nori begged, “You have to hide.”

“Do not be afraid.” the preacher answered, a smile in his bright blue eyes, “They are children of God.”

“Please, run.” Nori begged, “They're _monsters_. I've hunted them, _years_ I hunted them. I've seen what they do... I know what they leave behind. I'll face them, slow them, kill any if I can. I'm not a good man, I don't mind dying if _you_ live. You _need_ to live, to make the world a better place...”

Nori could not read the expression on Dwalin's face, but the big man put his hands on both sides of Nori's face to kiss him.

His lips were dry, bearing the tang of salt from the dust air, and the touch of them burned through Nori like fire.

It was a chaste kiss, a press of lips over too soon, but Nori was not a good enough man that he wouldn't take what he wanted in the last minutes of his life.

Nori wrapped his arms around Dwalin, pressed his entire body against the size and strength of the older man as he stretched up for his lips. The second kiss was deep and filthy, the slick slide of tongues and the roughness of Dwalin's beard against Nori's face. Dwalin's big arms cradled Nori, holding him close, and he gave back as good as Nori gave him.

He was a good enough man to give Nori what he needed to make himself brave.

“You are the best man I've ever known.” Nori told him, still unable to read the preacher's expression as he drew the walnut-handled Colts that had seen him through so much, “Run. Hide. _Live_.” Nori begged, and turned to join the others who were assembling to try to protect the town.

His last glance back saw Dwalin stepping into his house.

 

Nori's third life ended when he saw the Peacemaker.

It ended shattered into a thousand pieces like a bottle in a brawl when he saw the Peacemaker.

The sun beat down white-hot on the salt flat, blinding the eyes and turning everything into a swimming mirage. The approaching mercenaries wavered like flames in the air.

Nori was a marksman. In his second life he'd trained for this day endlessly, dreamed of it, ached for it. He was ready.

But the Peacemaker was not in front of him.

It started with a change in pitch in the screaming of the panicking townspeople behind him, and Nori turned to see the Peacemaker striding down the main street.

Big silver spurs on his heavy black boots chimed with each step forward. The hem of his long red cloak picked up the white salt dust, clasped at the throat with a gold medallion – the sun gleaming on it too bright to see the dove emblem that undoubtedly decorated it to match the .45 still holstered at his side. He didn't need that, when he carried a massive black machine gun over one shoulder.

His face was sharply shadowed by the brim of his worn black stetson, but Nori _knew_ him. He would know him anywhere.

Nori was vaguely aware of the people screaming and scattering around him as they realized that the Peacemaker was behind them already.

Nori was frozen, pistols useless in his hands. He shattered, piece by piece, as he watched the Peacemaker, the man who'd committed so many atrocities, walk past him. _Dwalin,_ the man Nori loved more than breathing, walked out to join his mercenaries there on the edge of town.

One of the mercenaries held out a fat cigar, and the Peacemaker took it between his teeth and accepted a light.

He _moaned_ as he sucked the smoke into his lungs, the sound obscene in its sensuality. He blew out a slow cloud, the scent catching thick and choking in Nori's nose, and he was a child hiding in the saltwater beneath his mother's body again.

Nori could not breathe.

He was frozen, shattered, his guns useless. He could not even blink to look away as his eyes fogged with tears – overflowing to run down his fresh-shaven cheeks.

The Peacemaker never said a word.

The mercenaries stepped aside, and the Peacemaker walked through them. They closed ranks behind him, and he walked out into the salt flat with his red cloak and his mercenaries behind him.

He left without looking back, and Nori could do nothing but watch.

The hot air shimmered between them, distance impossible to tell, when the charges began to blow – collapsing the mines and leveling all the most important structures in the town.

The mining town and most of the people in it were destroyed without a single shot fired.

 

Nori followed out into the salt flats.

He could not do anything else. Whoever hadn't been killed in the blasts would be dying of thirst, with the cisterns and stills broken and the train not due for weeks.

And who would believe that Nori hadn't had a hand in it, when he _lived_ with Dwalin?

Better to die hunting out in the flats than wait around to see if the thirst got him before the townspeople gathered enough to lynch him.

Nori couldn't do anything but hunt the Peacemaker. Couldn't do anything but follow Dwalin.

The man he loved was the man he hated was the man he loved was...

Paradox, wasn't that what Dwalin called it when they were talking philosophy? Two ideas that could not coexist.

But they did, and Nori followed out into the salt flats. He followed the shimmering backs of the mercenaries through the baking desert heat.

Nori followed long after the heat and thirst had his head swimming. He fixed his gaze on the mercenaries and kept walking. His lips dried and split from the salt and heat, and his nose and lungs burned with every dry breath, but he followed.

The sun on the salt made the air dance, and the mercenaries flicker. Sometimes it seemed he was following a great host of thousands, and sometimes just the back of a single man in a red cloak, but Nori _followed_.

 

Distance was impossible to tell, with the sun burning death down on the salt, but suddenly Nori caught the mercenaries.

–or, they'd stopped to _let_ him catch them. They ranged in front of him in a semicircle, all of them heavily armed, the Peacemaker with his cigar at the center.

“Ah, your little sodomite followed you.” One of the mercenaries started with a leer, “Shall we show him...”

“No.” The Peacemaker cut him off with a single sharp gesture, and the man fell instantly into contrite silence. “You will not speak of him that way.” the Peacemaker continued, leaning over to stub his cigar out on the packed salt.

“I know you don't like these.” He said to Nori, passing it off to the mercenary beside him, and that was _Dwalin's_ whiskey-rough voice, smooth as smoke, and Dwalin's softness in his smiling blue eyes. The bright-cutting glass shards that were all that was left of Nori shattered again. He was bleeding out on the inside.

“P-peacemaker.” Nori croaked through his dry throat, heat-swollen hands resting on the handles of his pistols, “I ch-challenge you to...”

The Peacemaker stepped forward, until he stood towering over Nori and the words died in Nori's throat.

“If you _could_ shoot me, brother, you would have.” he said gently, and Nori could look nowhere but up at his face as Dwalin ran his hand down Nori's vest, ending with his huge hand resting low on the buckle of Nori's gun belt, pressing him.

Nori was breathing fast, torn in a thousand directions as he looked into the face of the man he loved. The man who'd taken him in and been family to him when he had no one. The man who'd killed so many. He stood frozen as Dwalin unbuckled his gun belt and threw it and Nori's guns to one of his mercenaries.

“I would have had you join me...” Dwalin said, almost a little sadly, “I would have had you at my right hand, a child of God working to bring peace to the world...”

“You are the monster who mowed my mother down – my sweet, _innocent_ mother – right in front of me. I hid under her body to survive.” Nori answered, and he'd have spat if he had enough water left in him, “I hate you more than anything in the world.”

Hated him so much he couldn't breathe, and loved him just as much.

“'My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.'” the Peacemaker quoted, taking taking a step back to level his massive machine gun at Nori.

“On your knees.” He said quietly.

Nori was shaking as his knees hit the salt pack, looking up into Dwalin's face and the four dark mouths of the machine gun.

He had failed. So completely, he had failed. After all those years of hunting for revenge, he was going to die full of bullets just the way his mother had. After so long of trying to be a better man, he'd been listening to her killer.

“Here, brother.” The Peacemaker said gently, handing off his machine gun to one of his mercenaries and drawing his pearl-handled Colt, engraved with doves. “You'll be the only man I've ever killed with this gun.”

He said it like it was a great favor he was granting Nori, but in the end he still had a gun leveled between his eyes.

“It will be fast. You'll feel nothing.” Dwalin promised him, gently taking Nori's hat to toss it away, “'I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth'. Do you have a last request?”

A last request? Don't be the Peacemaker. Don't kill me. Don't be the man who killed my mother. Don't be the man I love, killing me.

Don't let me die like this.

The sun on the salt pack threw shadows sharp as a knife, blinding white against ink black – the Peacemaker's red cloak the only color. The mercenaries ranged behind him shimmered in the air, so they weren't _real_. There was just Dwalin and Nori, just the two of them baking in the salt heat.

Nori closed his eyes, and he found that he was not so dry he didn't still have a few tears to streak the salt dust on his cheeks.

“Read to me.” he asked. Begged. If he had to die, then let him die listening to the voice he loved best.

“I'll read the twentythird psalm, your favorite.” Dwalin said, and Nori could hear the soft rustle of pages turning – even though the sun would be too bright on the page to read, and Dwalin didn't need to _read_ it it anyway. He knew every word of it already.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want...” Dwalin began. His voice was honey and whiskey, deep enough to crack heaven and earth and leave their secrets exposed, somewhere between hell and God.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me;” Nori's lips moved in time with the words. He had loved these words, almost as much as he loved Dwalin's voice. Almost as much as he loved Dwalin.

When he thought he'd found the best man who ever lived.

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.” Dwalin's voice rolled itself to a stop. Just like so many nights at home, sitting across the table from each other while Dwalin read. Nori was home. He was home. Nori would open his eyes and Dwalin would say that dawn came early with a fond smile in his bright blue eyes...

He never heard the Colt fire.

[ ](http://asparklethatisblue.tumblr.com/post/88421156933/from-thorinsmuts-i-will-fear-no-evil-au)


End file.
